This invention relates to adjustable golf clubs having heads with adjustable face angle (loft), adjustable handle angle (lie), and telescopically closeable handles. More particularly, it relates to ratchet rings for adjustment of golf head loft and lie and to attachment of telescopic club handles to heads of adjustable golf clubs.
A golf club adjustable to characteristics of all types and forms of golf clubs and having a telescopically closeable handle was taught by U.S. Pat. No. 3,840,231, issued to Moore (the present inventor) on Oct. 8, 1974. A basic feature of face angle loft adjustment and handle angle lie adjustment of the Moore patent was a form of ratchet ring positioned between a rotationally adjustable head and a shank to which a telescopically closeable handle was attachable. U.S. Pat. No. 5,133,553, issued to Divnick on Jul. 28, 1992, modified the Moore device to position the ratchet ring in a housing for protection from sand and other substances in addition to other related modifications of both the adjustable head and the telescopically closeable handle. Now, the Moore patent is being modified further by its original inventor for further improvements of both the former Moore patent and the Divnick patent.
The original Moore device extended an attachment bolt and related attachment means from end to end of a back side of a club head where it interfered with a later-popularized thin central area with impact yielding characteristics that has come to be known as a sweet spot of heads of iron number designated loft angle of golf clubs. Divnick patent solutions to this sweet-spot problem and to the purported sand exposure problem of the original Moore device, however, positioned the head too far laterally away from the shank for optimum club control. The housing in the Divnick patent actually created a trap for sand that could not be dislodged easily. Further, the Divnick patent did not provide the finesse of loft adjustment and lie adjustment of an impact face and a separate putting face on a single golf club head as taught by the present Moore invention.